


This Is Where You Wanted To Be

by AndreaLyn



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-26
Updated: 2014-10-26
Packaged: 2018-02-22 17:51:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2516564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve's tired of grand gestures. When Danny comes back from Jersey, he just wants to give the man whatever he can at the beginning of a very long road.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Is Where You Wanted To Be

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from _Party Song_ by Keaton Henson. Set post Episode 5x04.

Steve knows what it’s like to have something inside you, tearing away and trying to unravel you to pieces.

He watches Danny start to come apart at the seams and knows, intimately, that the demons inside him are straining to get out. It’s not going to go away in a day. It’s going to take more than a few months, and if Danny’s lucky, it won’t take his whole life to shed the loss and grief of what’s plaguing him after losing Matt.

Except, Steve knows Danny and he knows how it’s going to eat at him. 

There are five stages of grief and loss and Steve refuses to let Danny be alone for a single one of them, even if he can’t manage to be physically close. Danny comes back to Hawaii and doesn’t even tell Steve when he flies in. He gets back to the island and he goes home and he doesn’t even tell Steve.

This is how it starts. 

Now Steve means to see it to the end. For three days, Danny won’t answer any phone calls. Steve tries to get in contact with him, but phone calls don’t do anything. They go straight to his voicemail. He even tries going past his apartment, but the curtains are drawn and the blinds are shut. Steve could barge in, break down the door, but this is the first stage. 

Denial and isolation are strong impulses to give into and for someone as stubborn as Danny Williams, they’re even stronger. By day four, Steve has given into his impatience and his own stubbornness and when he’s done pounding at the door to no answer, he decides that’s it, he’s done playing around, and Danny isn’t doing this alone.

Danny never has to do anything alone.

“Hey!” Steve keeps his voice down, not wanting the neighbors to call the police. The last thing he needs is for Duke to show up and to have to explain what he’s doing here. “Danny, come on. I know you want to be alone, but, buddy, I can’t let you do that.” He leans his shoulder up against the door and closes his eyes, trying to hear any movement or breathing, like if he just focuses enough, he’ll figure out if Danny is listening. “I love you, babe, c’mon, you gotta let me in,” he pleads. 

There’s silence, but after a few seconds, there’s the telltale drag of the chain unlocking a door.

Steve eases back off the door and watches Danny pry the door open a few inches. He tries to stay steady as he looks at Danny, who hasn’t shaved since he left Hawaii, by the looks of it. Danny hasn’t looked this rough in a long time and it takes all of Steve’s energy not to reach across the short distance and brush his thumb over the line of that stubble.

Instead, he lifts up the brown paper bag in his hands. “I brought beer.” 

It’s a six-pack of beer and he knows that this might make Danny think of Matt, but Steve wants to give him some kind of memory to overlay over the bad ones. “Steve, I want to be alone,” Danny says quietly, his voice scratchy and hoarse, like he’s been crying and screaming and raging.

And he’s been doing it alone. 

“Good, you can be alone with me,” Steve says calmly as he presses a few fingers to the door and pushes it open. Danny doesn’t resist, so Steve takes the inch and turns it into a mile. Danny moves away, raising both hands in the air, and Steve is so used to seeing Danny put together that seeing him now, like this, in a wrinkled t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, goes against everything that he’s ever known about Danny Williams.

Steve sets the beer on the counter and locks the door behind him, but he doesn’t offer any platitudes and he doesn’t tell Danny that it’s probably going to get worse before it gets better. That’ll come later if Danny hasn’t already thought of it himself.

The silence drags on and maybe that’s the worst part of all of this.

Danny should be bright and talkative, his mood warm and catching. Even when he’s complaining, he’s charismatic and filled with life. Right now, he looks like his lethargy won’t allow him to do anything but drag his heels along to get through the day.

“Later,” Steve says, as he steps in closer to Danny and grasps a handful of the fabric of his shirt at his shoulder. “Hey,” he says, to get his attention when Danny glances away. “Later, I’m gonna ask how your family is. I’m going to buy you dinner and you can tell me as much or as little as you want, the same way you did when my Dad died.”

“Later,” Danny echoes, scoffing. “So, what’s gonna happen right now?” It’s the most he’s said since Steve got here and it breaks his heart to think of Danny so silenced and subdued. 

Steve doesn’t bother telling him. Instead, he does what he’s always done and acts before he thinks. He uses that grip on Danny’s shoulder to haul him close, hugging him the way he only ever does in these kinds of terrible situations. Steve knows he shouldn’t spring thoughts like this on Danny at times like this, but he’s struck by how much he really wants to change that.

He wants to be able to card his fingers through Danny’s hair and not find debris and dust after nearly dying. He wants to say ‘I love you’ without pain or imminent death or danger waiting around the corner. Danny flew halfway across the world to find him and Steve went with him to Colombia, but right now, he’s so tired of grand gestures and he just wants to love the man in front of him in the most mundane, simple, and quietest of ways.

“Steve…” Danny’s voice breaks slightly as he sags into the embrace, but Steve hushes him before he can say another word.

“Let’s drink this beer, then we’ll order something in, okay?” Steve insists. He’ll tell Danny later what he wants, but Steve figures there’s no harm in showing that kind of care, especially not when Danny needs it the most. “Maybe I’ll even shove you into the shower so you can rinse some of that grime off. I can practically still smell Jersey on you,” he jokes mildly, but he’s still holding onto Danny and he’s not sure he’s ready to let go.

He doesn’t need grand gestures. 

Right now, he just needs to give Danny a warm shower, a hot meal, and good company. 

“So, guess I’m not gonna get that alone time, huh?” Danny quietly teases and Steve takes the small half-smile as one of the biggest wins he’s ever experienced.

“Since when have I ever let you be alone?” Steve asks him in turn. “You’re not alone, Danno, and you’re never going to be. I’m always going to be here. Always.”

Danny looks up at him with something in his expression and Steve thinks, gratefully, that Danny really, truly believes him. Danny reaches out for the beer, pressing one into Steve’s waiting palm, and lifts the bottle up in salute. Steve doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to. They both know who they’re toasting to, they both know what they’re drinking to forget, and they both know that it won’t do the trick.

Not completely.

But like Steve knows, this is just the start. They’ve got a long ways to go and Steve isn’t planning on going anywhere.


End file.
